LATE NIGHT STORY: Now that winter is gone, and the August/September galeforce winds have subsided we can take a breather and look forward to summer. Maybe I should end winter and its chills of with a story. I am coming from a large family and my dad had an enormous task on his broad shoulders to provide for us. My mom used to char from time to time to help bring the bacon home. Since we were poor and electricity was a luxury that we could not afford for a great part of my upbringing, my parents were forced to burn coal to cook, since wood became scarce where we lived in George. Those were at the height of the apartheid regime, therefore electricity was mostly available to the more affluent and economical houses in the greater George area. So the poor people had to resort to the burning of wood and coal for heat during the cold and wet winters. In winter my hometown realy lived up to its registration letters, CAW, acronym for Cold and Wet! During one of those freezing winternights my dad decided to light a coal fire which we called a "ghellieblik". You light it outside and allow the coal to burn throug and bring the hot coal into the house for much needed heat. On that spesific evening we had to attend a prayer session in another part of the location and dad locked five of the kids in the house while the went to church. When they came back later that night, my dad battled in vain to unlock the door from outside! They knocked on the door and windows for my brother David who was looking after the younger ones, to open the door from inside. Later they had to shout to wake them up, but without success. Dad later realised that something terrible was wrong when only the youngest of our brothers, Daniel started to cry after he woke up. He tried in vain to wake the rest of them up, and panicked because he was too small to open the door himself. After trying everything else, dad broke a window to get in and then learned that the rest of the kids were in a coma, the could not wake up. What happened was that the coal emitted a dangerous intoxicating gas that overtook all of them. They had to rush all of them to hospital where they were treated successfully! It was a blatant attemp from the enemy to take my siblings lives but God did not allow him to. Up until today tears of joy fill my eyes when I thank God our father for His mercy. That was the end of the usage of the lekker old "ghellieblik" for the Matthews family. I hope you do not dream about this.............good night friends...........
Posted on: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 21:33:48 +0000
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